The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Due to the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication devices, people of all ages and education levels are utilizing electronic devices to communicate with other individuals or contacts, receive services and/or share information, media and other content. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to provision of audio data via communication devices.
At present, echo in voice communications across telephones may exist. Currently, echo cancellation, may be performed to remove echo from a voice communication in order to improve voice (e.g., voices of individuals on a call) quality on a telephone call. In addition to improving subjective quality, echo cancellation may increase the capacity achieved through silence suppression by preventing echo from traveling across a network.
Existing echo cancellation systems generally involve first recognizing the originally transmitted voice signal associated with individuals on a call that typically re-appears, in the transmitted or received signal. Once the echo is recognized, it may be removed by subtracting it from the transmitted or received voice signal associated with the voices of the individuals on a call.
Although conventional systems may remove echo associated with voices of individuals on a call, conventional systems typically may not remove echo caused by other audio sources. For instance, conventional systems may not perform audio echo cancellation for systems that combine voice communication in addition to streamed audio content. At present, undesirable echo may occur, for example, in collaboration systems that may combine video conferencing and online streaming of audio or videos.
For instance, two users who are at different locations may wish to watch a video or listen to an audio track together while they are having a voice or video conference. If the users are using a speakerphone feature, a communication channel may create an echo or feedback loop because a user's microphone may typically sense the audio output of a speaker and typically redirects the audio back to the sender.
In an instance in which two or more users who are having a voice or video chat and are also listening to streaming audio broadcast such as, for example, a web feed of a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-2 Audio Layer III (MP3) file or an audio track (e.g., YouTube™ video) or the like, the users may typically hear the audio broadcast twice, for example, once from their local audio stream and once from the remote voice feed. The resulting “echo” typically may result in poor audio quality and may create an undesirable user experience.
Many existing collaboration systems that combine voice communication and audio sharing typically do not include improved echo cancellation, which may generally lead to echo of the shared audio content.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks, it may be beneficial to provide a mechanism for removing the echo associated with combined voice and audio data in an efficient and reliable manner.